NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Gordie Howe, not etched for all eternity on the Stanley Cup?
It's about to happen.
Howe's last Stanley Cup championship -- with Detroit in 1955 -- will never be erased from history. But it will soon be removed from the Cup, along with 11 other teams when hockey's silver chalice gets another band of winners' names retired this summer.
When the Cup has no more space for a new team, as will be the case this year when Pittsburgh or Nashville takes the lone available space on the trophy, a filled band comes off so it can be replaced by another. It happens every 12 years or so; the removed bands go into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
That means every Cup winning team from 1954 through 1965 will be retired because space is needed this year. That's six Montreal teams, three from Toronto, two from Detroit and one from Chicago.
